Can a secondary amendment be amended?

• A. Yes
• B. No
• C. Only by the maker of the main motion
• D. Only by the assembly

Answer: (B)

In parliamentary procedure, you can amend a motion, and you can also amend the amendment to that motion—this is called a secondary amendment. However, a secondary amendment cannot itself be amended. If you want to change what the secondary amendment says, you’d typically withdraw the secondary amendment and instead propose a new amendment to the main motion (or to the existing amendment, depending on the rules in use).

For example, if the main motion is to allocate funds and the first amendment changes the amount to $1,000, a second amendment could change that amount to $1,200. You wouldn’t be able to propose another amendment to that $1,200 figure; instead, you’d either adopt the secondary amendment as is, withdraw it, or propose a fresh primary amendment to the main motion.

This keeps proceedings clear and avoids a tangle of multiple levels of amendments.